Top researchers have found that they burn sugar, or fructose, to generate energy without oxygen. They do it through a metabolic pathway like plants.

‘The naked mole rat has simply rearranged some basic building-blocks of metabolism to make it super-tolerant to low oxygen conditions,’ Professor Thomas Park, from the University of Illinois in Chicago, US, said.

They might hold the key to beating cancer (Picture: PA)

When they were tested in labs the rodents were deprived of oxygen and went into a state of suspended animation but survived for up to 18 minutes with no long term impacts.

Other rodents, like mice, died in just 20 seconds.

At oxygen levels low enough to kill humans, the mole rats kept going for at least five hours.

Scientists now think that the crowded burrows where they live have made sure the rats can survive with low oxygen.